New 8Gb DDR3 components from Intelligent Memory

March 03, 2018

Product

New 8Gb DDR3 components from Intelligent Memory

I'M Intelligent Memory, a Hong Kong based fabless DRAM man-ufacturer, announces the availability of their newest revisions of 8 Gigabit DDR3L components, just in time before the Last-Time-Buy of...

DDR3 memory technology is widely used in the industry. Various DRAM manufacturers are offering the components in capacities of 1Gb to 4Gb, while high-capacity 8Gb components always have been limited to only the big players on the market.

Recently the largest DRAM-manufacturers Samsung and Hynix both have announced end-of-life for their DDR3 8 Gigabit devices, leaving many industrial customers with no more supply.

Just in time before the Last-Time-Buy dates of Samsung and Hynix, I’M Intelligent Memory announces the release of their fully compatible 8Gb DDR3 components.

Orderable devices from I’M include a x8 (1Gx8) configuration in FBGA 78 ball package and a x16 (512Mx16) type in FBGA 96 ball package.

While Hynix and Samsung both only supported 8Gb DDP (Dual Die Package) components having two separate chip-select lines, I’M offers their 8Gb DDR3 components optionally with a single Chip-Select (1CS) or a dual Chip-Select (2CS) pinout.

Applications where the board-layout is only prepared with a single CS line to each DDR3-component were often limited to take max-imum 4Gb devices. The new Intelligent Memory 8Gb 1CS products now deliver the upgrade-path to double the capacity.

8Gb DDR3 devices are also used on most high-capacity memory-modules for servers with form-factors such as RDIMM, VLP RDIMM, LRDIMM, VLP Mini RDIMM or VLP Mini UDIMM.

While Samsung and Hynix did not only EOL the 8Gb DDR3 com-ponents, they also announced EOL of their complete line of DDR3 modules. But even 3rd party manufacturers such as Smart, Virtium, Viking, ATP and many others will be affected by the 8Gb EOL.

As Intelligent Memory has its own memory-module manufacturing line together with their own DRAM-line including 8Gb DDR3, they will also be offering almost the complete line of DDR3 modules in all form-factors with longevity for multiple years.

For SO-DIMM and UDIMM memory-modules, I’M Intelligent Memory offers capacities up to 16GB per single module, optional-ly with ECC.

The fact that I’M carries the devices also with 1CS gives a hint that I’M could also make 16Gb DDR3/DDR3L components with 2CS. Joseph Chan, General Manager of I’M Intelligent Memory confirms this with his statement “Yes, indeed we are working on a 16Gb 2CS device already, as we had many customer-requests for such prod-uct. We plan to have the 16Gb DDR3 parts ready by Q3/2018 and we will be offering them in three different widths, x8, x16 and also a x32. For the x32 we will use a BGA136 ball package. With these high-capacity product-series Intelligent Memory will take the lead-ing-edge of the DDR3 market.”.

All of the I’M DDR3 devices support DDR3L low-voltage (1.35V) operation and are fully backward-compatible to standard DDR3 1.5V operation. The products are optionally available in commer-cial as well as industrial temperature ranges.

With dimensions of only 9x10.6mm for the FBGA78 and 9x13.5mm for the FBGA96 package, the devices are small enough to fit on a majority of existing layouts.